Lost and Found
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl AU. Oneshot. It was just a normal night. Nothing was out of the ordinary at all until they found her.


**AN: I wanted to do this "scene". It's "waking up with amnesia" and it's Carol and Daryl, even though her name is never mentioned in the actual piece.**

 **I own nothing from the show.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"You want me to lock this?" Daryl called to Tyreese. He couldn't see the man. It was dark and the last lamp in this area had burned out at least a week ago. The storage area hosted a number of rows of lonely, half-rusted metal buildings with heavy rolling doors on the front. They were lined up like metal soldiers and, along the way, there were a number of street lamps that were expected to illuminate the area. They did a fine job of it, too, as long as they were working.

The construction business that Tyreese ran, and in which Daryl worked as something of an assistant manager, hadn't yet brought in enough money for what they wanted to build. What they wanted to build was a nice "headquarters" for themselves. They wanted it to have on-site storage. Until that was built, though, they stored all their extra equipment in the storage building they rented when the small shop they currently worked out of, conveniently located in Tyreese's back yard, was full. That meant, for both of them, at least two trips a day to the location.

Tyreese had walked down, between the buildings, to take a piss without a doubt. The place was pretty well deserted most hours of the day. Daryl had seen maybe four people there in the past month. It was creepy as hell and, in Daryl's opinion, seemed almost like the perfect location for a horror movie, but thus far neither he nor Tyreese had come face to face with a single axe murder, werewolf, or zombie.

"Yeah, I'm done," Tyreese called from wherever he was lurking for the moment. "Getting the shit outta the truck to throw away. Meet me at the dumpsters?"

Daryl hummed.

"Pick you up," he called.

He heard, when he listened for it, the sound of Tyreese's shoes crunching on the gravel covered "roads" in between the buildings. Daryl rolled down the heavy door of the storage unit and he put the lock on the door that would keep people out. There wasn't really anything in there that the average Joe would want to steal, but precautions were still a good idea. Daryl rattled the door, checking to make sure that it was secure, and then he turned to start back toward the truck.

Ahead of him, having stepped into the light of one of the burning street lamps, Daryl could see Tyreese. He reached the truck before Daryl, went directly to the back, and started to get the scraps and other things that they threw back there during the course of the day. When his arms were full, he carried the things over to the dumpster and threw them in.

It was common practice. Their lives were repetitious to a point of boredom. Every day was like the one before, right down to what they ate for lunch.

Daryl never realized, as he walked closer to Tyreese, already knowing what he'd do before he did it, that their lives were about to change entirely.

Tyreese threw the first heavy armful over the top of the big metal dumpster, just as Daryl already knew that he would, but when it hit the bottom with several loud thudding noises, there was another noise that issued forth and echoed out of the metal can.

 _It sounded like a stifled scream._

Immediately the hair on the back of Daryl's neck stood up and a shiver ran up the length of his spine and radiated out through his body.

His first instinct was to think that he'd made it up. He'd imagined it because he had an overactive imagination and he had been thinking about how damn creepy the place was when half the lights were burned out and hadn't been repaired. He'd made the sound up and he was freaking himself out.

But he couldn't convince himself of that because Tyreese had frozen too. He was staring off at nothing, and his mouth was slightly ajar, but he had heard it too. It was clear that he had.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. They remained in their spots, stiff-muscled and waiting. Daryl wasn't sure what he was waiting for, exactly, but he had the feeling that's what he was doing. He was waiting. He was waiting for another scream. He was waiting for proof that he and Tyreese weren't sharing some kind of late night induced hallucination. He was waiting for something, and so was Tyreese.

When they didn't get it, Tyreese thawed from his position and walked over to the dumpster. He reached a hand up, flat-palmed, and rapped on the side of the trash can. The sound echoed through the interior the dumpster and was followed by a softer, but still identifiable, muffled scream.

Without thinking and without speaking, they both sprang into action. Daryl rushed forward, jumped enough to get his hands on the edge of the dumpster, and pulled himself up. He wasn't as strong as he wanted to be, so he was grateful when Tyreese grabbed his legs and gave him the boost that he needed to peer over the side of it.

Thankful for the working street light in the area, Daryl tried to make out what was in the bottom of the dumpster. Bags and other things stood out as darker black against the blackness of the dumpster. He peered harder and he made out, though he wasn't quite sure of the details of what he was seeing, the form of a person. The individual moved and the movement further assured Daryl of what he was seeing.

"It's a damn person," he said.

"Ladder's in the truck," Tyreese said.

"Hey!" Daryl yelled into the dumpster. "Hey—hang tight. We gonna get'cha out."

Another muffled noise let him know that the person had heard him.

No less than twenty minutes and some legally questionable choices later, and Tyreese and Daryl had the woman out of the dumpster. They'd made a pad, on the ground, out of some of the material scraps that they found in the back of the truck and Tyreese was offering her water out of one of the half-drank bottles they had in small splashes while Daryl cut her arms and legs loose from the duct tape that matched that which covered her mouth.

She'd been badly treated and she hadn't ended up in the dumpster by accident. That much was clear. She was only barely conscious when they got her out. Her eyes alternated between being open and closed, and she made nothing more than an occasional moan or something reminiscent of a scream that sounded like she'd been doing that for a while and had almost spent her voice entirely. Daryl could tell that she probably had head trauma, due to the mark on her head that had stopped bleeding now, but he couldn't tell what else might be wrong with her.

Once she was free, he crawled on his knees up toward her face and looked at Tyreese who was supporting her with one arm, also sitting on his knees, and offering her water.

"Can you hear me?" Daryl asked.

In response, she rolled her head in his direction. She could hear. She could probably speak, too, but for a moment she didn't want to give up on the water.

"Can you talk?" Daryl asked.

No words, but she did nod slightly. She looked confused and disoriented. Of course, Daryl assumed if he'd been duct taped and thrown into a dumpster, he might very well be confused and disoriented too.

"Who are you?" He asked.

She looked at him and then she rolled her head back in Tyreese's direction and looked at him. She didn't respond, though, and Tyreese gave Daryl a look of concern. There might have been more to it, but Daryl had failed at interpreting Tyreese's most complex thoughts more than once before—it was how they'd had the unfortunate hammer incident.

"Do you know who you are?" Tyreese asked, directing the question to the woman.

She stared at them both again, and then her only response was to break into a strangled sob. Tyreese jerked her up—possibly another poor choice on their part in all of this—and hugged her to him like a rag doll. It was, at the moment, the only thing that could be done for her sobbing.

Daryl, thinking that maybe they might find some hint as to who the woman was, apologized to her in her ragdoll position and reached to pat at her pockets. She flinched, but Tyreese held her tight to him.

"It's OK," he crooned at her. "It's OK. He's just looking for some I.D. We're just going to find some I.D. and we're going to get you some help."

Apparently Tyreese was better at reading Daryl's mind than Daryl was at reading Tyreese's mind.

Daryl's quick search came up empty. He shook his head at Tyreese and sucked his teeth.

"Man, she don't got no I.D," Daryl said. "Whoever it was put her in that dumpster didn't want her getting found. And if she got found? Didn't want her getting identified."

Tyreese lowered the woman to the pallet again and she looked back and forth between them, but she didn't say anything. Tyreese was wide-eyed and looked sincerely spooked for the first time since after they'd heard the first sound echo forth from the dumpster.

"You think somebody dumped her in there?" Tyreese asked.

Daryl stared at him, cocked an eyebrow, and then finally spoke without even trying to hide his incredulity.

"How you figure she got in there? You think she crawled in there? Beat the hell outta herself, crawled in the damn dumpster, and then duct taped her own self up?" Daryl asked.

Tyreese looked around. He looked like he expected Jack the Ripper to jump out of the shadows. He'd been running on adrenaline and instinct, but now he was settling into reality. Something had happened here—something was going on—and it was terrifying in a town where nothing of much excitement ever happened.

"Stop looking," Daryl said, swallowing against his own fear that was renewed when he saw the fear on Tyreese's face. "Whoever done this shit is gone."

"Who the hell would do it?" Tyreese barked, his question probably rhetorical. Daryl would have no way to know the answer to it.

Daryl looked at the woman who was looking at him. Though she was wide eyed as well, at the moment she seemed to be the most collected of all of them. She didn't even know who she was. She likely didn't remember what had happened to her or how she'd ended up in the dumpster.

"Ya know who done this?" Daryl asked.

"No," she responded. It was the first verbal response they had from her. It was the first indication, even that she spoke English.

"You don't know who you are?" Daryl asked.

"No," the woman responded.

"You know anything?" Daryl asked.

She genuinely seemed to be thinking, but finally she closed her eyes and shook her head.

"I don't know—I don't know," she said. "I—it was dark. I woke up and it was dark. I was scared. I am scared. I didn't know where I was until—something hit me and I heard you. I heard—something."

Daryl sighed and looked at Tyreese.

"What are we gonna do?" Daryl asked. "I don't know her."

He looked back at the woman and tried to study her face around her injuries.

"I don't know you," he said.

Her face screwed up like she might cry again.

"Whoever done this? Chances are they ain't from around here," Daryl said. "Chances are—she ain't from around here."

"We'll take her to a hospital," Tyreese said, some of his fear clearly fading now that he seemed confident they weren't being jumped from a shadow. "They'll find out who she is. Take care of her. It's all we can do."

Daryl looked back at the woman. She was looking at him. Maybe it was because he'd been the one to come over into the dumpster for her or maybe it was because he was the least terrified at the moment, but she was looking at him like he was some kind of hero. She was looking at him like she wanted him to be some kind of her. Daryl hated to have to inform her that he wasn't much of anything—and he certainly wasn't a hero.

Her eyes, though, were begging him to be the hero that he wasn't, and it was tugging at something in his gut. She was terrified—and clearly with very good reason—and she wanted something from him. Something he wasn't even sure he had to offer.

He swallowed, even though his own saliva felt like pebbles running down his throat. His throat felt too small, all of a sudden.

"We'll take you to a hospital," he promised. "We'll—get'cha fixed up. Find out—who you are. But—don't worry, OK? You ain't goin' dumpster diving no more. Police'll find out who done it. They ain't gonna get you again."

She actually looked relieved, like the promise from him that she was safe meant anything at all, and he almost felt sad for possibly having lied to her.

If there was anything he could do? He'd see that he did it.

He slid his hands under her.

"Just hold on," he said, struggling to get to his feet with her in his arms. Tyreese helped him get up. "Just hold on," he repeated. "We'll get you to a hospital. It's gonna be alright. I got you."

She surprised him by wrapping her arms around him and somewhat rolling herself up to make carrying her to the truck easier. When she looked at him, some of the fear was gone that had been there before.

He might not be able to do anything else for her, honestly, no matter how much he might like to. But for now? He'd been as much of a hero as she'd probably had in her life for a good long time.


End file.
